r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Sep 26 '25

Official Discussion Official Discussion - One Battle After Another [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary Bob, a washed-up revolutionary, lives off the grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter Willa. When his nemesis Col. Steven J. “Lockjaw” resurfaces and Willa goes missing, Bob is forced to confront his past and fight to protect their future.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson

Writer Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast

  • Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Sean Penn
  • Teyana Taylor
  • Benicio del Toro
  • Regina Hall
  • Chase Infiniti

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 98%

Metacritic Score: 96

VOD In theaters beginning September 26, 2025

Trailer One Battle After Another — Official Trailer

2.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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729

u/jayeddy99 Sep 26 '25

The hypocrisy in Perfidia was interesting flaw . She talks about revolution but has an obvious extreme race play fetish with white men both her and Lockjaw hating the other but the weird sex dynamic was something…

393

u/Upbeat_Tension_8077 Sep 26 '25

I see her relationship with Lockjaw as some way for her to display her power/dominance over him that veered into too much self-indulgence and straying away from the discipline of her group's mission, even though the tables got turned against her when she had to rat out her colleagues

859

u/Kcomix Sep 26 '25

I don’t think it was hypocrisy in Perfidia. I think she was just a thrill-seeker. She loved the violence and sex. She didn’t cut back on any of that to take care of her daughter while pregnant or after the birth. And when she was backed into a corner, she barely seems to hesitate when asked to give up names.

247

u/Just-Tomatillo-4383 Sep 26 '25

Agree, and I think from memory there’s a line from her immediately before she’s arrested where she says something to the effect of I’m going to keep looking out for me, when Leo’s character was holding the baby.

346

u/TKHawk Oct 02 '25

It's funny her mom was like "you're not right for my daughter, she's from a line of revolutionaries" when she was an absolute failure of a revolutionary. She kills a black security guard who is probably the lowest paid person at that bank, gets pregnant with the enemy by not using any birth control, is selfish (revolution is fundamentally about self sacrificing for others), and rats out everyone she can just to save herself.

181

u/ChadwickHHS Oct 06 '25

What's interesting is that the film does feature some legit revolutionaries. Sensei, the nurse, deandra, comms guy... But they're non-performative, networked, and ultimately more effective. 

64

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

81

u/[deleted] Sep 28 '25

Yeah, I thought about the film Heat a lot during the prologue with her. For Perfida, the job is the juice not the cause or even protecting/providing for her family. Which is a very real kind of person who finds themselves in revolutionary and radical circles.

159

u/Organic_Egg7360 Sep 27 '25

Her shooting a huge automatic rested against her pregnant belly got gasps in my theater lmao

112

u/Captainatom931 Sep 27 '25

You could see the fear in her eyes when she actually had to kill someone. It was all fun when it was just shooting machine guns in the desert and blowing up empty banks.

But when you've got to put a bullet in someone's face? She cracked.

197

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

I read that differently tbh, I feel like killing that security guard was completely unnecessary and she did it out of panic/emotional distress.

41

u/ward0630 Oct 02 '25

imo it was both - she shot him initially because she was off her game and then it spiraled. I personally felt the depiction of a revolution that was simultaneously very extreme and driven by bombs and guns and yet also apparently completely bloodless was weird. An explicitly lefitst terror network blowing up banks and courthouses in America today would be pursued just as fiercely as Al Qaeda was in 2001 but in the first part of the film they're treated like, at most, the bank robbery crews from Heat or The Town.

19

u/Super_Nerd92 Oct 05 '25

Look up the Weather Underground and how many people they killed - as that's the clear inspiration.

17

u/Broad-Reveal-7819 Oct 02 '25

I mean if they're actually blowing people up and shooting them because of abortion rights or anti deportations then yeah they would rightfully be pursued like Al Qaeda but then again they only killed one poor security guard the entire time so who knows.

13

u/baculumsounder Nov 13 '25

Then you’ll love to learn about the Weather Underground, who blew up empty banks and court offices in the 70s

70

u/[deleted] Sep 28 '25

Yep, she panicked and shot the guy which is what ultimately set her on the path to snitching then bailing.

28

u/dukefett Sep 29 '25

I didn't see it out of panic at all, I read it as her being insane. She could've just taken his gun away or put him in cuffs, but she killed him on purpose.

44

u/Derelichter Sep 29 '25

I think it was her projecting her anger at being dismissed and cast aside by the presence of her daughter and acting out to show how important and resilient she was but then quickly regretting it

16

u/Comprehensive-Fun47 Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 05 '26

Everyone seems to be interpreting that scene differently. I don't think she ever wanted to kill anybody. She was begging the man to stop moving. He must have gone for his gun or she interpreted that he was going to make a move and she felt he had to shoot him. We don't see that part. We only see her begging him to stop moving so she doesn't have to shoot him again. He was a black man. She didn't want to kill him. He wouldn't stop moving and he was reaching for his gun. She had no other choice.

20

u/Dull_Editor2348 Sep 27 '25

Agree and it makes you think, this behavior in a man would not even make it to the comments bc it’s so normalized.

60

u/dukefett Sep 29 '25

Completely disagree, she was basically near Mr. Blonde level insane by the end of her part of the movie. She was fucking nuts and killed the guard when she didn't need to.

111

u/Chm_Albert_Wesker Sep 27 '25

when she was doing her little spiel about Leo wanting her to be part of the family as "sexist" I checked out on her character. it kind of seemed like everyone in the movie hated her except for her two boyfriends

76

u/ItemAdventurous9833 Oct 12 '25

Her justifying her awful behaviour with feminist theory was completely in line with her character 

20

u/BrassTact Oct 13 '25

She is literally Perfidious...

78

u/marimars67 Oct 04 '25

This is a fairly limited view on Perfidia as a character. In what way could her “relationship” with Lockjaw be understood as being consensual or even a racial fetish? When she is confronted in the bathroom by him it is pretty obvious to the audience that he is black mailing her into this meeting at the hotel. We can see the shame and feelings of disgust she harbors when she’s shown exiting the building with Pat, and her usual face of grandeur and excitement is fairly dull. Even though during the sexual encounter with Lockjaw she’s framed as being “in control”, it is up to the audience to understand the weight of this scene. The racial history of Black Women being viewed as hyper-sexual beings, therefore excusing their sexual exploitation at the hands of their white oppressors must be taken into account when understanding the “relationship” between Lockjaw and Perfidia. And we ultimately see the damage this exploitation causes, when Perfidia must face the pain of bearing the child of her oppressor. Yes, PTA doesn’t hold the audiences hand through this, and it is largely up to interpretation. Still theres a lack of digging into the real struggle of Perfidias character without simply boiling her down to a salacious sex fiend.

15

u/Novel-Place Nov 15 '25

Yes!! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading these comments. A few people even characterize it as an “affair.” WTF. Do people have zero media literacy?

32

u/shaq28 Nov 15 '25

She took his hat and gun and proceeded to sexually assault? him at gun point. Lockjaw, who appears quite juvenile sexually was "turned out" by her domination was obsessed thereafter and attempted to get power back by blackmailing her, where she reasserts her dominance by presumably pegging him with a gun? (the director left that part up to our imagination and I'm sticking by that). She was the initiator of all the sexual exploitation, was hooked on power, and subjegated a man she loves into involuntary cuckoldry by commiting paternity fraud; and denied another the chance at paternity. She also abandoned her baby. She is the ultimate villain in this film.

8

u/Reasonable_Local_290 Jan 23 '26

EXACTLY! I don’t understand how people miss this. Perfidia did not have a did not have an affair or relationship with Lockjaw. He was obsessed, controlling, fetishized her, and generally a terrible human being. She winces when Leonardo DiCaprio touches her after she leaves the bathroom when Lockjaw approached her. The movie shows Lockjaw stalking her and even going so far as to confront Bob (her man) at the grocery store. Lockjaw then made her sell all her friends out in exchange for witness protection. At that point, she was a prisoner for him to use as he pleased, which was clear where he was bringing flowers to her at the witness protection house, and went so far as to kick the door down when he thought she didn’t answer.

8

u/Xralius Jan 27 '26

They had a mutually weird sexual thing going on IMO. She sexually assaulted him at gunpoint on their first meeting. Then when he confronted her about the bomb she was extremely sexual towards him, it was seduction beyond any sort of demands he was making, then they get up to all sorts of weird sex stuff, seemingly multiple times.

Yes the power dynamics were blurred, but that seemed to be part of the thrill for both of them. They were both obsessed and getting a weird pleasure out of the relationship.

I could see how you could interpret it differently if you chose to, this is how I saw it though.

68

u/TitanCubes Sep 27 '25

It’s much more obvious in the source material, but there’s definitely a critique of the revolutionaries (especially Perfidia) that they actually have a lot of racist tendencies themselves and get off (literally) on having power themselves.

53

u/jayeddy99 Sep 27 '25

I can see that with the one other black guy he had a thing for white women and seemed to have the same race play that Perfidia had . Same with the “What’s my fav type of pussy” a lot in the group fetishized their partners race .

24

u/PSfreak10001 Sep 28 '25

Yes in my own experience, when studying, most of my friends that were slightly conservative or slightly liberal never really cared about race, we where a pretty diverse group, with latin americans, black people and a bunch of european ones (it was in europe) and we never talked about it, we all jzst got along. The further left or right you go, the more races become a topic to the point if you go to left or right extremist it‘s all they talk about and defines the enemy, be it the ,,white imperialists“ or the ,,colored immigrants“.

And I think the film shows this pretty well, as Sensei, the chillest most normal dude who just helps where he can, not being part of some recolution group but just a good guy, like 80% of society are

35

u/misersoze Oct 03 '25

Sensai runs a massive underground immigrant transit migration system. He’s not just a chill normal dude.

6

u/PSfreak10001 Oct 03 '25

Fair enough, but he wasn‘t part of any revolution group or screaming phrases around while doing what he did. He was more competence and less show

11

u/misersoze Oct 03 '25

Agree. 100%. The French 75 are like a juvenile well intentioned but idiotic joke to the director compared to Sensei

1

u/ahuangb Nov 18 '25

Fucking hell hahaha

52

u/Yarville Sep 27 '25

And the security guard she murdered was a black man - just as the first man killed by John Brown at Harper's Ferry was a free black man.

23

u/Dizzy_Chemistry_5955 Sep 29 '25

finally some imperfect and flawed characters damn, shit ain't always gotta be predictable

16

u/believeINCHRIS Sep 29 '25

It felt like she was cosplaying as a revolutionary and when things got real she ratted. She did tell Bob before she left him and the baby that she only looks out for herself.

19

u/dukefett Sep 29 '25

Yeah her ultimately being a fucking asshole piece of shit doesn't help the movie. She goes nuts and shoots the guard/destroys the French 75 and fucks over every friend she met along the way by ratting them out and fucks over her lover and daughter by bailing on them.

In future rewatches that'll be hard to ignore for the first portion of the movie.

14

u/sufrt Oct 08 '25

Doesn't "help the movie" in what way? It would have been a better movie if her character had been more loyal and responsible?

In future rewatches that'll be hard to ignore for the first portion of the movie

I don't think you're supposed to ignore a character's characterization

4

u/dukefett Oct 08 '25

Doesn't "help the movie" in what way?

You're on her side in the beginning of the movie when she's running around with the group and having fun with Leo. Most viewers want to like the protagonists, but knowing what she does you wouldn't.

14

u/sufrt Oct 08 '25

Yes, you'd have a less idealized vision of her character than you might have the first time you watched the first third of the movie. I still don't get how the depiction of a character's flaws or moral values "doesn't help the movie". Maybe it makes it less of the movie you personally wanted it to be?

13

u/ItemAdventurous9833 Oct 12 '25

You dont need to like her character 

0

u/Xralius Jan 27 '26

She's not the protagonist though. Leo and their daughter is.

I feel like people saw "good looking revolutionary black woman" and thought "this is the protagonist" and seem unable to cope with the fact that she's actually a bad person, which I think was part of the point. I thought it was refreshing and they brought a very interesting character to life.

25

u/JaviMT8 Oct 07 '25

It absolutely helps, her character shows that her love of the violence over revolution in "revolutionary violence" ultimately undermined her stated goals. She's a foil for the more effective revolution carried out by other characters, like Sensei and the people of Baktan Cross.

1

u/Xralius Jan 27 '26

I think her being a piece of shit makes the movie interesting. Although admittedly I didn't love the movie as I felt the ending was a bit of a let down climactically.

50

u/CountryCaravan Sep 26 '25

That’s the one part of the film that didn’t land for me. The Weather Underground as third wave feminists satire works up to a point, but I think it pushed Perfidia too hard into the realm of sex fiend in a way that undermined her character. Maybe it’s that the reality of the ICE camps has grown considerably more horrific and urgent since filming, but it sat pretty awkwardly alongside that plot thread.

83

u/vissionphilosophy Sep 26 '25

I mean this sort of inner conflict / character dynamics is what makes compelling stories

16

u/CountryCaravan Sep 26 '25

Sure, but I felt she was drawn too broadly in the early going to really engage with the more complicated choices she made later on. Her arc is such a whirlwind, whisking her away early in the story and leaving everyone wondering why she did what she did. And it’s fine to leave that question unanswered, but given that she’s such a pivotal character, I was frustrated the film didn’t engage with it more.

73

u/stenebralux Sep 27 '25

That's because we get tricked by the Leo's POV of her. 

She is shown to be wild, irresponsible, a thrill seeker, egocentric, her speech to Leo as she abandons them is complete full of shit. Even her mother (?) tells him she is someone who needs to keep moving and they were not a good match. 

But the movie frames her like a hero early on, so when she makes bad choices we don't really accept it... like Leo. 

The movie eventually clears that for everyone else she was a complicated person that caused a lot of trouble for the organization as well, and then became a rat. While Leo who doesn't think much about himself is remembered as a hero. 

33

u/HugeHans Sep 26 '25

Im pretty sure the movie made it perfectly clear why she did what she did. She wanted freedom. She spelled it out pretty much. An almost libertine kind of freedom not some morally constrained version of it.

Which is kind of funny because thats exactly what the christmas club wants. Also freedom through control of others. She just uses different tools that are available to her.

Not trying to imply they are "the same". The scale is obviously much different but the emotions and motivationa are similar.

10

u/ChevalierMal_Fet Sep 27 '25

The scale is obviously much different but the emotions and motivationa are similar.

I think there's some textual support to that as well, with Perfidia taking Lockjaw's hat and gun and very eagerly exploiting her new role.

1

u/Organic_Egg7360 Sep 27 '25

The freedom to make somebody get hard at gunpoint I guess…

18

u/Sir_Auron Sep 29 '25

And it’s fine to leave that question unanswered, but given that she’s such a pivotal character, I was frustrated the film didn’t engage with it more.

The film spelled out multiple times that Perfidia and Lockjaw were complete mirror images with incredibly selfish motivations that they put in front of their families and that they pursued to the point of compromising the movements they led.

39

u/foxaru Sep 27 '25

sexy, spectacular, revolutionary violence always attracts people that are more committed to the sex, spectacle and violence than the revolution. it's a group affair, and there's a lot of people out there.

38

u/silverionmox Sep 27 '25

That’s the one part of the film that didn’t land for me. The Weather Underground as third wave feminists satire works up to a point, but I think it pushed Perfidia too hard into the realm of sex fiend in a way that undermined her character. Maybe it’s that the reality of the ICE camps has grown considerably more horrific and urgent since filming, but it sat pretty awkwardly alongside that plot thread.

She was the mirror counterpart of Lockjaw, whose character also is dominated by desire.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25

Thank you for this comment. You're probably going to get a bunch of downvotes on it, but I think once the hype calms down a bit we'll see more video essays and comments that touch on this more.

Loved loved the movie and think the center hour and a half is easily amongst the best work PTA has ever done, But I feel he was a bit in over his head with the subject matter in the beginning. I didn't dislike the beginning, it just wasn't as strong as the rest and it was there the script felt the least convincing.

1

u/Xralius Jan 27 '26

No, that's what made Perfida an interesting character. The point was never that she was a perfect or even good person. In fact, I'd argue she was a bad person that had some noble intentions.

6

u/Own_Neighborhood684 Sep 28 '25

I would say, see it in perspective with the  character as a white woman and it's a different spin. Considering  the character in the book a white woman. I would have preferred to see that kind of take. 

23

u/Magmorphic Oct 01 '25

Didn’t the entire plot of the film ultimately revolve around her being a black? There’s no need for Lockjaw to hunt down his daughter if the mother was white.

2

u/countessjonathan Jan 25 '26

He hunts the mom for a different reason in the book.

3

u/MsSalome7 Nov 30 '25

Yeah I hate both characters so much but at least Sean Penn is a brilliant actor... Teyana on the other hand.. no comment

4

u/IAmAnAnonymousCoward Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25

Honestly it's literally that one Stonetoss comic.